Conquerer of All
by sunnywinterclouds
Summary: I love you, she keeps saying, and he knows for a fact, deep down in his heart, that he used to love her too.


Olivia is upset with him.

There was a time when this would concern him. He remembers, quite clearly, how he used to strive to make her smile and live to make her laugh. And when she was upset, it would be his goal to have her happy again. And when she was upset with _him_, he'd do everything he could to get back in her good graces to avoid being banished to the couch.

And more than anything, he knows that her being upset means that _he_ should be upset, because he loves her and seeing her unhappy makes him unhappy too.

Except, it doesn't.

He knows that it _should._ He knows that it _used to_. But he doesn't know _why._

It's not his pain. It's hers. Emotion is a fluke in the human design, something that the Observer tech has fixed within him, a bug in the system that it's managed to repair. It's funny, how he never noticed how _flawed_ his structure was before his Origin Point.

That's what he's calling it now. His Origin Point. The day he really started living.

… … …

Olivia keeps telling him that she loves him, that she doesn't want to lose him. He finds this odd. He's not gone. He is still here, only better. Peter Bishop 2.0, if you will. He feels like that's something that he would have said before his Origin Point. A quip.

Humor won't help to avenge Etta, to save the world. That's a flaw, too, and he's glad it's been flushed from his system so he can be the savior of everything that is.

_I love you,_ she keeps saying, and he knows for a fact, deep down in his heart, that he used to love her too. Or, still does? The older, lesser Peter had, but Bishop 2.0 doesn't. Not really. He knows he's _supposed_ to, because she's his wife and she's doing everything she can to save him (from _what,_ he keeps questioning her, and it always makes her cry), but he just doesn't _feel _it. His Origin Point feels like where his life began – everything before is irrelevant. His feelings for her are irrelevant. Feelings are another fluke, another thing that was holding him back, and now that he's free of them he can fight and avenge Henrietta.

He's lost his daughter, and he's losing his wife too, but none of that matters anymore.

… … …

His hair is falling out at an alarming rate now. Every day when he wakes up (although he doesn't really sleep, it's more like when he gives up and gets out of bed) there's more strands of brown tinged with gray on his pillow. He'll be bald soon. He has a hunch that this is something old Peter would not be happy about, but he doesn't care.

He is almost completely perfect. He will soon be one of them. Except he won't be, because he's a good guy and they're the bad guys and there is a fine _fine_ line between him and the Observers, no matter what Olivia seems to think.

That day, the day he kills Windmark, he picks up his hat and examines it.

He keeps it as a prize.

The next day, when Olivia sees him wearing it, she bursts into tears and has to leave the room.

… … …

Walter wants to remove the tech from his head. Olivia is behind him, nodding at what he says and _begging_ Peter to please, _please_ listen to them because she loves him and he's everything to her and that she's going to break if she loses him, too.

He still doesn't get it.

This tech is _him_ now. It has made him something more, a better human being, a debugged program. He's _perfect_ now. There are no flaws. There are no jokes, there are no mistakes, and there are no _feelings_. Why can't they see that?

He remembers that Olivia almost never used to cry. It's all she seems to do now.

Walter says they can't get the tech out of his head. It's fused permanently there. He's glad for it.

But when he sees the tears in Olivia's eyes, and the way she can't even look at him, he feels something akin to a pain in his chest.

He frowns.

It looks like the tech hasn't fully worked yet. There's still that little drop of empathy down there in his heart.

But there's no need to worry.

It will be gone soon enough.

… … …

Olivia visits him that night.

"Hey," she says softly, closing the door as she enters his room. He tilts his head to the side, trying to find out what her next action is going to be, but he's tired and he's sure that Olivia is not a threat so he decides not to see too far into the possible futures.

She sits down next to where he is on the bed and runs her fingers down the sleeve of his jacket.

"Still not sleeping?" she whispers, her voice stained with tears. He nods, unblinking, because Peter 2.0 doesn't _need_ to sleep. It's another design flaw in the human race, one that's gone now, and why can't she see just _see_ that?

Olivia fiddles with her fingers for a second before looking up at him. It strikes him how sad her eyes are, the beautiful emerald green (although he can't tell, because they're blue right now, everything is blue, but he knows they _used_ to be green) tinged with defeat and sorrow, and his head throbs with this new and yet completely familiar feeling of a connection between them.

"Peter, I know you think things are better this way. But they're not. And I _promise_ you," she lays a hand over his, and a jolt spikes up through his body at the contact, "that I'm not going to give up on you. On us. Ever. And if there's even a little bit of you left in there, I want you to know that you have to fight it. Okay? For me. For Etta."

Something inside him melts a little, and in that instant he loves her, too, and there's nothing more important to him than making her happy and if fighting this tech is the way to do it, then consider it gone and defeated.

And that that moment is over, and he's a better Peter again, and he's angry. Angry at _her._ For making him feel, for trying to undo whatever damage she thinks has been done.

"I'm _doing_ this for Etta, Olivia. Don't you see? I'm avenging her death. I'm making sure everything she fought for wasn't wasted."

He's up and off the bed, facing away from her, and Olivia gets up too so she can place a hand on his shoulder.

"By becoming everything she fought _against?_ Peter, why are you avenging Etta?"

"Because I love her," is his instant response, and _oh shit_ everything is wrong now.

"But you don't. You don't love anymore, Peter. You don't love _me._"

"I do," he says, and he's wrong. He doesn't love her, and he doesn't love Etta. He did. He did with all of his heart, but that's gone now, because he's fixed.

"No, you don't. You don't. Think about that, Peter, about what you're doing. Please."

She leaves, and Peter knows that more than anything, pain is caused by love.

The love is gone.

So why won't the pain just _go away?_

… … …

An observer almost kills Olivia, and Peter is terrified.

And as he saves her, he realizes how wrong he was.

It's not gone.

The pain won't leave because the love hasn't.

And Olivia looks at him, really _looks _ at him, and there's so much hope in her eyes as she hugs him and holds him close.

"I knew it," she whispers into his shoulder, her hands gently tracing circles on his back. "You're still in there, Peter. I saw it in your eyes. And I swear, no matter what happens," she pulls back to take his face in her hands, "I _will_ save you."

He furrows his brow and opens his mouth slightly. "I don't understand."

He grabs her hands, gently, because he doesn't want to hurt her because she has suffered _enough_ (where is this coming from), and he searches her face for answers of any kind.

"I love you."

He says it more as a question than a declaration, because he doesn't understand _why_, doesn't understand anything anymore, but Olivia gives him a watery smile and envelopes him in her arms again.

"Yeah," she whispers, burying her nose in his familiar smell of everything Peter, "you do."

… … …

He makes a joke two nights later, and it's not that funny but she laughs and laughs and _laughs_ more out of pure and utter _joy_ than out of humor. And hearing her laugh makes him happy, makes him warm and fuzzy and accomplished, and he has the sudden urge to kiss her.

He does.

Olivia, he's noticed, doesn't cry much anymore.

….

Walter says the tech has loosened its grip on him. He can take it out now.

Peter is happy. An emotion, he knows, but a good one.

He was wrong. Once the tech is gone, and his world is in bright, beautiful color again instead of blue, he knows it. He knows he was wrong.

Feelings aren't drawbacks. They're not a flaw, not a fluke. They're a _blessing_, something humankind has been gifted, something beautiful.

He knows that when he looks into Olivia's eyes, green again, and so full of hope and relief that it makes his heart burst.

There is still pain. From the loss of Etta, from the destruction of the world, from twenty years lost in amber. But there is love, and though an earlier cynical Peter, and Peter 2.0, would have scoffed at him for thinking such thoughts, he knows that love conquers all.

Olivia has conquered all she has ever come across, and she is his love, and what other proof does he need?

(It takes months for his hair to grow back, but by then they've saved the world.)

**couldn't leave my baby bald, whoops.**

**unbetaed and written at midnight in half an hour, please be gentle :)  
**


End file.
